


Stay The Young

by chairdesklamp



Series: KSH (Kazokuseirituhen) 1997-98 [6]
Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, Teen Pregnancy, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Kurosaki Ichigo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chairdesklamp/pseuds/chairdesklamp
Summary: Ichigo faces not being able to fight, and Chad doesn't take finding a family lightly.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Sado "Chad" Yasutora
Series: KSH (Kazokuseirituhen) 1997-98 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1302782
Kudos: 20





	Stay The Young

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> -Considering my listening habits, surprised it took me this long until I had a non-English song.
> 
> -I don’t think Ichigo’s being a coward at all…but he sure does.
> 
> -I…moved back to the SF Bay Area, and wound up back in my field of social work faster than I found an apartment. There are problem staff at my job—mostly my rank peers are VERY transphobic, as well as racist as all get-out against Asians and Latinos and very disdaindful of homeless people. There’s one big transphobia problem with the head of HR, but other than her, management, including the friend that got me the interview and I now refer to as ‘boss-friend,’ is great! I’m not fighting a racially segregated shelter that doesn’t allow in non-Christians, but working in a place that genuinely helps severely physically ill homeless people as best it can. I’m proud of what I do, and don’t have to fight the agency to do it! My housing is a 1R. It’s about the size of a dorm room. It’s 1,100$/mo, and doesn’t even have a kitchen. I’m keeping most of my things in storage, hoping the rent crisis blows over and things go back to normal. My old church, bank, the librarians still at the library from before, the whole of Chinatown has accepted my new identity, and welcomed me back with open arms.
> 
> -Yeah, okay, demi is not what I am, either. I’m flat out ace, just not outright sex-repulsed. I'm gonna have Ichigo as demi, though, and eventually Grimmjow, too, because for story purposes, they both need to have children they weren't trying to concieve. Like here, for Ichigo. Demisexual seems to be once you get to know someone, you may actively really want sex with them. Like here, once Ichigo developed a bond with, that led to romantic feelings for Chad, and knew they were reciprocated, he sought sex. Before and beyond that, no interest. 
> 
> -By the way, they make it so obvious to all viewers that Orihime's sending flirtatious signals to Ichigo in canon. Ace and grey-aces are apparently normally oblivious to “he's so into you—his gaze lingered by .0000005 seconds and he was talking about the weather in that way...How could you be so dense!?” (I'm pulling from a certain instance and conversation I had in 2018) To me, it looks like no-one's interested. It didn't look like that guy was. I am now what I term “functionally aromantic,” because due to being a narcist magnet, these days, I’d rather get punched than go out on a date, but I’m not naturally aromantic. And I get where Ichigo is missing her signs completely. She will still do that in my stuff (though I'm gonna hafta consult an allo person, preferably female, on how to write subtle flirting feminine style. This whole thing is never gonna get filmed and end up a massive fic serie instead), and things will end up with Ichigo making it explicit that it went over his head. That'll be years before Sungsun explains that there's more to asexuality than what she is, though. So he won't know why everyone else thinks it's so obvious. 
> 
> -I hate to use slang in the narrative, but all the terms I know for this are slang. In my language, what that is is ‘nose water.’ The congealed or hard ones that you may have to pull out of your nose are “nose shit.” (The word ‘shit’ has a direct translation in every language I know. Which I possess at least a few words in…nine. I can only converse in three, though. Which I lost my French (superceded by Spanish, which I switched to for friend-making purposes) and I didn’t have great English at Ichigo’s age, really just Japanese and a little French, and very poor English. But now, I have vague familiarity or more with nine. Some just from having friends who spoke it, like Serbo-Croatian and Russian. Ichigo’s definitely doing way better than I ever will. My dad topped out at three fluent, too. (Russian in place of Spanish. They’re the northern neighbour of Japan)
> 
> -I went a bit George of the Jungle with the coffee table scene. High-fives to anyone who knows what I mean.
> 
> -Fair warning, vague, vague, blink-if-you-miss-it reference to CSA.
> 
> \--Totally wrote the knife sharpener bit after my own dad. He’d pretend to be a samurai, make a show of it.
> 
> \--Maypole scene, Ichigo’s right. It’s not Russian or accurate. Chizuru is a hyper eleven-year old.

「君は  
守るものが  
増えすぎたから  
どこが臆病に見える」「Stay The Young」村田和人、日本、1987年

“You’ve got too many things to protect now  
And in some ways, you look like a coward”—“Stay The Young,” Murata Kazuhito, Japan, 1987, Translation by Kamiyama (chairdesklamp)

  


Blood dripped from Chad’s split left eyebrow, into his eye and onto his shirt. It dripped from a cut on his right palm, leaving a trail of splotches on the pavement as he hobbled to a payphone.

Adjusting his torn jacket back onto his shoulder, he fished out and fed to the phone the necessary coins. He considered closing the door, but didn’t want to freak out the next person by leaving bloody handprints, as his good hand was already holding the receiver.

With the least bloody finger, he dialled Ichigo’s number.

“Hello! Who are you? I’m Yuzu!” Yuzu said on the other end. Ichigo’s laugh was heard as he took the phone from her.

"Hello, Kurosaki residence.”

“Ichigo…”

“Chad…are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I got into a fight. I just need bandages. Don’t panic when you see me.”

A silence followed. Either way, Ichigo would end up finding out. And either way, it’d be a pill he’d have trouble swallowing.

“I love you, Ichigo. Thank you for staying safe.”

He’d almost left it at that, but realised he could do one better for him.

“And protecting our baby.”

Ichigo’s voice came out broken, but at least he’d responded, “Yeah, just…be okay. Come home. I’ll help patch you up.”

‘Come home.’

Chad smiled, filled with warmth, “I’ll be home soon.”

  


Ichigo answered the door when Chad knocked. His eyes went wide and voice up, “Chad! You're—is anything broken!?”

He pulled Chad toward the clinic as Issin came out into the house. “Dad..!”

Issin nodded slowly, holding out his arm to invite them into the clinic, “He walked here, right? Forehead wounds bleed excessively. So do extremities. It’s okay.”

An examination and 27 stitches—most to a long cut on Chad’s hand—later, Ichigo wiped at the dried blood on Chad’s face with a wet towel.

Chad and Issin had both let him do it, realising that doing something was calming him down. His eyes were back to normal, and he’d stopped shouting. In fact, he was somewhat quiet.

“ _I hate this._ I’m so happy I’m having a baby with you, but I hate this. I hate that I have to hide it. I hate that I have to hide from fights. I hate that I can’t fight. I hate that that _you have to fight alone_.”

His voice broke. “I hate that I can’t protect you.”

His head dropped and his shoulders shook as tears flowed, “I hate that I’m crying again! I hate that this is all I can do!”

Chad lurched forward and grabbed onto Ichigo tightly with both arms, burying his face in Ichigo’s hair, “Ichigo… Ichigo…”

“I’m just really angry at everything right now,” Ichigo sobbed, “I’m being a total coward.”

Chad pulled apart from him, and with the fingertips of his stitched hand, brought Ichigo’s face up to meet his.

“Ichigo…”

Ichigo said nothing, so Chad continued, “You are doing something. You are protecting. You’re protecting our baby who is being made inside you, and is very fragile. And _needs you_ to not fight.”

Along with the tears, both noticed as the snot running from Ichigo’s nose began to run onto Chad’s hand.

Being boys, both laughed.

Ichigo had stopped crying.

Ichigo took Chad’s hand from his chin and wiped the snot with the wet towel, “That probably shouldn’t get in your wound.”

Ichigo threw the towel in the hamper, and fished out a fresh one from an overhead cabinet.

Placing it down to wipe off his face and blow his nose with paper towels, he added, “Yeah. You’re right; I know you are. It doesn’t change how bad I feel. Or how angry I am at society for the fact that I have to hide being pregnant in the first place.”

He threw the towel in the hamper, and in the midst of rolling up his sleeves for a surgical scrub, paused.

“I don’t think I have to worry about germs being transmitted between us in general…”

Chad laughed, “I’ve transmitted more to you already.”

Ichigo laughed, dampening a new cloth with warm water, “I’m gonna finish getting you cleaned up.”

  


Chad sat on the living room sofa, in a Aloha shirt and sweatpants borrowed from Issin, as Issin was fetching them dinner at 7-11.

Ichigo laid across the sofa, head in Chad’s lap, both watching over the girls as they simultaneously played, argued, and half-watched Anpanman on VHS.

“I could honestly do this forever.”

Chad ruffled Ichigo’s hair in response.

“Talking so much earlier taken it out of you?”

“Aah,” Chad said affirmatively.

“HIIIII!!!!”

Ichigo sat up, the girls climbed over the couch, and Chad turned his head just in time to see Chizuru climb through the window near the front door, and onto…

Ichigo’s eyes went wide, “Watch out for that--!”

Chizuru climbed onto the one-legged table under the door, tipping it over, and tumbling along with it and the phone, which crashed several centimetres away from her with a loud ‘clang’ of its internal bell.

“.coffee table. Are you--?”

“I’m okay!” Chizuru exclaimed, bouncing back up as if nothing had happened.

The boys went over, Chad righting the oak table while Ichigo righted the phone and set out looking for the paper and pen that had been by it.

Karin and Yuzu rushed up with dolls in hand.

“You wanna play with us? Our dolls are getting married!”

“No, they’re kunoichi and fighting!”

“No, they’re not! They’re getting married!”

Chizuru plucked a doll from each girl’s hand, the two going silent and watching her.

“What if the brides married the kunoichi?”

Both girls blinked.

“Yeah! Okay!”

“Only if they fight monsters at the wedding.”

“Sounds good to me,” Chizuru said thoughtfully.

Yuzu nodded, “Okay…but only the monsters.”

“…Okay.” Karin agreed after considering it.

“Let’s go then!” Chizuru declared, and ran back to in front of the television, squealing with Yuzu, Karin following quietly, but matching speed.

“I see a future for her as a diplomat,” Ichigo remarked.

  
“Mmh,” came Chad's reply.

Ichigo laid his hand next to his face on Chad's thigh and closed his eyes, “I could lay like this forever.”

The door opened as Issin declared, “I'm home!”

  


The two laid, Ichigo in Chad's arms—not that there was space to spread out—in Ichigo's bed.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in,” Ichigo called.

Issin peeked in, stepping fully in after struggling with the door.

“I should fix that,” Chad remarked.

“As long as you show me how,” Ichigo added.

“Okay,” Chad laid a kiss on the top of his head.

“Kisuke and his want to come visit this weekend,” Issin said, “I thought I should let you know in advance.”

“Yeah, okay. Not looking forward to any 'you're too young' speeches, but,” Ichigo sighed, “might as well get it over with.”

“Fear not!” Issin brightened up, “If need be, I will defend you with my Super Extrodinare Issin Death Glare! And my--”

“Good night, father!”

Issin immediately switched to bawling, “Polite speech!? My son is so cold, Masaki, my loooooveeeeee~!”

Ichigo was grateful for Issin at least shutting the door as he went downstairs, wailing all the way.

“Who was he talking about?”

“Oh, this...they're like a couple except there's three of them...Dad's old friends since before I was born. They helped us get settled out here in Kamakura, and they own this really tiny noodle shop in 2-chome. It's set back from the road a bit, and most of the people that go there do so because it's close to the Seniors' Centre, but the food is actually really good. We should go sometime. They also see ghosts, by the way.”

“Hmm. Okay. Are you worried about telling them?”

Ichigo considered it, “More like...I mean, I know I should be more worried. Less mentally prepared. More freaked out. More...13...than I am...”

He craned his neck to look up, “You aren't, either.”

“I was kicked out of childhood a while ago, though...maybe you, too.”

“I don't think as much as you, but...yeah.”

He thought of making friends with a ghost, of the teacher, of his secret of what she’d done to him, of spending eight months in a hospital bed, of coming out—twice, of the memory he would never forget of his mother's body bleeding out in his arms, of how the next thing he remembered he knew was twelve days later...

“--ven though we are...Ichigo?”

Ichigo shook his head, “Sorry...I sorta took a trip down memory lane.”

Chad moved his hands to rub Ichigo's shoulders and began massaging them, “Do you wanna talk?”

Ichigo sighed, “No. I...talking about it brings it all back at my face. I'd rather not think about it. It's mostly stuff I've told you, anyway.”

“Ah. Does this help?” Chad asked.

“Yeah, it does...See, you can help me, but me? I can't do _anything_ right now! You come home looking like you lost a fight with a giant, angry cheese grater, and what can I do? Nothing! We're not old enough to escape this nonsense, and I can't do anything about it! We can't have these immature _assholes_ arrested, and I can't help fight back! None of this makes any sense! Why can't we just be!?” 

To Chad, Ichigo looked wound up and ready to spring at the end of his rant. It wasn't a rant without reason, and Chad new it, but it worried Chad to see Ichigo work himself into such a state.

Chad pulled him around by the shoulders until Ichigo was looking directly up at him, “You are doing an incredible thing. I know you want to fight, but _let me protect us_ right now.”

Ichigo leaned his head back and closed his eyes in defeat, “I just wish things were...just not so hard. And just...not like this. That we weren't both targets for every immature, raging moron with a violent streak in a 20-kilometre radius. That the world was just...not so closed-minded. That we could just…be! It’s not fair! Why do we have to be punished just because we’re not Yamato, or straight, or…”

Ichigo sighed, running a hand through his hair, “The world is lousy. It’s just…lousy.”

Chad couldn’t really offer a counter-argument; in place of that, he held Ichigo tighter and kissed him.

“I’m here for you,” he offered.

Ichigo seemed to relax in earnest,his shoulders slackening, his neck and face losing their tautness.

But Ichigo couldn’t really face the world with Chad, either, for the time being. In lieu of offering himself at Chad’s back, he laid back down, his head on Chad’s chest.

He closed his eyes, “I almost feel guilty for bringing someone into a world like this.”

“Ah,” Chad began to run his fingers through Ichigo’s stiff-with-gel hair, “but we can raise them well. Teach them to make the world a better place. Along with us.”

Chad could feel Ichigo’s face shift into a smile against his skin.

“Yeah…we can.”

  


“GET OUT!!”

Ichigo crossed his arms at the doorway of the kitchen, “And let you wind up with first degree burns!?”

He stepped forward, turning off the stove with one hand, taking the oil she was pouring into the sizzling pot with the other, gritting his teeth against her screaming, “You never, _ever_ pour oil into a pot with the stove on!”

“How do you know—you can’t cook!” Yuzu argued, hands curled into fists.

“I burn the food; not myself!”

He hoped this was just a phase, and it would pass, but he had to at least make sure she didn’t end up on the other side of the clinic door—or worse—until it did, “How about I teach you some basic kitchen things?”

Yuzu calmed down, being taken seriously, and considered her brother’s offer for a moment.

“I wanna learn from someone who can cook.”

Ichigo put the oil back in its place and set the pot on the cooling stove, “Chizuru already said her aunt might be able to teach you when she’s in town, but if you don’t wanna learn from me, you’re just gonna hafta wait.”

“Fine,” Yuzu sulked, stomping to the living room.

She passed Issin at the doorway, who idly patted her head.

Ichigo glared at him, “I dunno when you came in, but I really could’ve used your help there.”

Issin shrugged, “I thought you handled it just fine.”

Ichigo frowned as Issin continued, “Yasutora took Karin with him to get groceries. My son has found us a cook!”

Ichigo rolled his eyes, “Chad’s only doing it because we’re a pitiful mess of a lot that can’t feed ourselves.”

“We’re home!” Karin called from the doorway, kicking her shoes off.

Chad trailed behind, putting his shoes on the rack.

“Karin, you forgot something,” Issin tutted, “Mum will weep from Heaven if you—“

Karin stomped back over to the shoe rack, grumbling, seeming more like an angry spouse than anything as she went to slam her shoes on the rack.

“Welcome home,” Ichigo said, up on his tiptoes and pulling Chad down for a quick kiss, “What’d you get?”

“Stuff for chili rellenos. I won’t make them spicy.”

“I will trust that that’s delicious.”

“You’ll see.”

“Oh, Chad?” Ichigo called as Chad passed him on the way to the kitchen.

“Mmh?”

“You think… maybe you could teach Yuzu a bit? I caught her pouring oil into a fry pan on a lit burner.”

“Ah. OK.”

“And Chad?”

Chad halted in his tracks and faced Ichigo once more, completely unbothered by repeatedly being called back.

“Hm?”

Ichigo crossed one arm over his chest, and rubbed the back of his neck as he gazed at the floor to hide his blush, “You think…you could show me a few pointers, too?’

Chad smiled, “No problem.”

  


Within a few minutes, the three were in the kitchen, Yuzu standing on a chair as Chad leant over her, holding her hands that held the knife, enforcing practise of a safer way to cut.

In one smooth and steady swinging motion from top to bottom, the pepper was sliced apart.

“Sharp knives are important. Dull ones cause accidents,” Chad shared.

“Mum always had Dad sharpen them on this thing that looked like a sword, but was more shaped like the beam of a light sabre,” Ichigo said, decidedly not mentioning that he thought Issin looked cool doing it.

“A knife sharpener. I’ll show you how to use that if you want,” Chad looked over Yuzu at Ichigo.

“Well, I mean, Dad still…” Ichigo frowned—there were just times when Issin wasn’t terribly reliable, “OK, show me. When we have time.”

Chad nodded, smiling at Yuzu, who was looking up at him with wonder in her eyes, “Now we take the seeds out so it’ll be mild.”

“What’s ‘mild’?” Yuzu asked.

“He means so it won’t be too spicy,” Ichigo explained. Then to Chad, “Lemme do it—you have stitches in your hand.”

“Ah, thank you.”

“LOOK AT MY CHILDREN GROWING UP!!” Issin bawled. Ichigo visibly jumped, and his hair seemed, at least to Chad’s eyes, to be standing on end.

As Issin scrambled for the poster (and Chad could practically hear Flintstones-like sound effects as Issin ran), Chad looked away from Yuzu to Ichigo, who had a hand to his chest, “You OK?”

“I will be once my heart starts beating again!”

Chad remained still, eyes locked on Ichigo, who’d realised his sarcasm was missed, “Yeah, I’m OK,” he smiled. “You?”

“I pulled the knife away in time”

Chad decided to stay alert for the rest of the time cooking.

  


It was quite a day to be up on the roof of the southern building of the complex. Rain poured from a sky darker than it should be before monsoon season. Wind whipped it around as trees were swayed to and fro. 

Mrs. Nakasima had told him there was a little leak in the roof over her unit that morning, and Luke had had Chad head to school anyway, a tarp thrown over it in the meantime by Hideo.

He’d wondered what the ‘just in case’ was about Luke taking so much with them for such a minor repair.

Luke climbed up the ladder behind him, tools in a bag over one shoulder.

Chad shouted over the wind, “I don’t think the power tools are a good idea!”

Luke called back, “We’ll just have to do it manually! You can do that!”

Chad nodded back, and together with Luke, pulled the tarp off the damaged area.

“Would you boys like some tea?” the elderly tenant called from her kitchen, which was in clear view through the gaping hole in the roof.

Chad just looked stunned.

“I knew it was bound to be serious when Mrs. Nakasima complained,” Luke shouted. The look on his face, however, told Chad he hadn’t quite judged how serious, and that Hideo hadn't bothered reporting what he saw.

The wind seemed to change direction and blow the rain right in Chad’s face, to which his soaked hair was already plastered down to his nose.

“The weather report said there was a thirty percent chance of rain,” Luke shook his head ruefully.

  


Ichigo was starting to worry about Chad when nine P.M. rolled around. He’d said it would take an hour at most.

And that thirty percent sure was coming down hard….

So would he be—he was currently the girls’ maypole, and it was not easy to keep his balance wrapped from shoulder-to-knee as he was.

“And then,” Chizuru explained to Karin and Yuzu, “Now that we’ve wound the ribbons around our maypole—“

“ _Mummy!_ I am wrapped like a mummy!” Ichigo interjected.

“Maypoles don’t talk!” Chizuru chastised.

“I don’t exactly trust that this is accurate, yanno!”

“It’s my version, so it’s the best version,” Chizuru said crossing her arms over her chest.

“Isn’t this done in Western Europe and not Russia?”

“You were the one who offered to play with us!”

“Yeah, big brother!” Karin chimed in.

“Yeah,” Yuzu added.

“I didn’t promise to play ‘mutiny’.”

Yuzu gave her best ready-to-cry face.

“Nope. Not gonna work.”

Yuzu hung her head in defeat.

“It’s nine o’clock. Chizuru can stay over, I’m not making anyone walk in that. And you two need a bath… But if you untie me right now, I’ll give you twenty more minutes, since tonight isn’t a school night.”

Finding himself untied in record time, he turned the TV on and fished out a tape to pop in the VCR.

Just as he was considering whether Flashman would really keep Yuzu and Chizuru interested, the phone rang.

Ichigo put the tape in and picked up the phone, “Kurosaki residence.”

“Ichigo.”

“Chad! I was getting really worried. Are you OK?”

“Ah. I’m at the phone booth by the Seven.”

“In this weather!?”

“I was repairing a hole in the roof until about a half-hour ago. I’m soaked anyway.”

“Why didn’t you immediately get a hot bath and dry clothes!?”

“Have you all eaten?”

Ichigo could feel tears welling up as Chad continued, “I got to the supermarket before they closed.”

Ichigo couldn’t deny that Chad’s devotion was as needed as it was touching—they’d only had lumpy cornmeal porridge, after all.

“We- we didn’t have much.”

“I’ll be over soon.”

“Thanks,” Ichigo wiped his eyes, “You didn’t have to.”

He’d have to change the girls’ bedtime tonight.

“Yes, I did,” Chad replied, “I have a family now. I have to feed them.”

Ichigo closed his eyes. 

It had been a long time since he’d felt so at peace.


End file.
